Webster

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." --American Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)


Monday, June 17, 2013

Monday Music "Someone is watching me...." by Rockwell

I am doing a segment of my "Monday Music" and I decided to use a song in deference to the NSA openly spying on the American public. 


"Somebody's Watching Me" is the debut single by R&B artist Rockwell, released on the Motown label in 1984. The song's lyrics relate the narrator's paranoid fear of being followed and watched. It featured former Motown artists Michael Jackson on the chorus and Jermaine Jackson on additional backing vocals.[2] A clip of the song was remixed and released on Michael Jackson's Immortal album in 2011, with parts of songs such as "Is It Scary", "Threatened" and "Monster".

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Rockwell is the son of Motown CEO Berry Gordy Jr. At the time of the recording Rockwell was estranged from his father and living with Ray Singleton, his father's ex-wife. Singleton served as executive producer on the project and would occasionally play some demo tracks to Berry Gordy. The elder Gordy was less than enthusiastic about Rockwell's music until he heard the single with a familiar voice featured prominently on background vocals.[2][3]
Produced by Curtis Anthony Nolen, the song featured backing vocals by ex-Motown artist Michael Jackson and Alan Murray on percussion.[2][4] "Somebody's Watching Me" peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984, and reached the top of the Billboard R&B singles chart, as well as reaching number six on the UK Singles Chart.
Due in part to the popularity of the music video, the song is sometimes used for Halloween celebrations, with cover versions found in various collections of Halloween music.

Music video

The single's music video underscores the song's paranoid tone with a haunted house-inspired theme, including imagery of floating heads, ravens, graveyards, and shower scenes referencing the novel Psycho. The mailman who appears in the music video for "Somebody's Watching Me" also stars in the video for "Obscene Phone Caller". This was a low budget video. Music video produced by The Wolfe Company, directed by Francis Delia, cinematography by Dominic Sena, production manager: Jason Braunstein, production coordinator: Jon Leonoudakis. Leonoudakis appears in the video as the visual metaphor "watching" Rockwell through the porthole of the front door.

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